Former Republican National Committee Chair Michael Steele tore into his own party on Friday, saying that by latching onto President Donald Trump's anti-FBI "Spygate" claims, the GOP is "disintegrating the very pillars of justice in this country."
Appearing on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," Steele, who ran the RNC from 2009 to 2011, said he was stunned at the news that Trump's Russia probe lawyer Emmet Flood had attended a meeting between House lawmakers to discuss an FBI informant who spoke with Trump campaign members in 2016.
"What the president's team did yesterday is something no other citizen in this country would be permitted to do. And that is to have their counsel and their executive chief officer from their business, if you will, inside a meeting," Steele told co-host Joe Scarborough.
"This is what twists my stuff in a knot. Republicans are complicit in this crazy. And they're sitting here now and dumbing down the system.
"They're disintegrating the very pillars of justice in this country … by going after those institutions like the FBI and the DOJ, but then permitting the president to behave in a way in which no other American citizen — and they know damn well that this is true — would be able to behave."
Trump has been on the warpath in recent weeks over the role that informant Stefan Halper played as an embed during his 2016 presidential campaign. He has suggested the FBI used the informant to spy on his presidential campaign for political purposes.
On Thursday, the commander in chief tweeted that "spygate" could be bigger than Watergate. And earlier this week he ordered the Justice Department to investigate.
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